Helping to bring Rachel out of her shell will be her determined new suitor Brody (played by Dean Geyer). “She’s now not coming from a place when she met Finn, where she was like this totally insecure, annoying little girl,” he says. “Now she’s a woman and she’s been through a lot and she’s achieved a lot. So she approaches boys differently, with a different kind of confidence and a different kind of maturity. There’s not as much, ‘Don’t mention sex.'”

Regarding the new guy her in life, Falchuk notes that he’s “so different” from Finn. “He has the same kind of kindness and sweetness, but he’s a very different kind of person,” he says. “It’s great to write Rachel with somebody different.”

Where does all this leave ‘Finchel,’ who ended the season essentially broken up? The EP says the split “will stick” — for now at least. “I want Rachel and Finn to have a happy ending,” he insists. “I think the idea is that maybe they end up together, but a lot can change. As we write we might discover something interesting. It’s definitely not going to get better anytime soon for those two.”